Language:
English
Year of publication:
2012
Titel der Quelle:
Polin; Studies in Polish Jewry
Angaben zur Quelle:
24 (2012) 299-320
Keywords:
Gren, Roman.
;
Kuryluk, Ewa,
;
Keff, Bożena.
;
Jews History 1945-
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Jewish literature History and criticism
;
Polish literature History and criticism
Abstract:
Notes that a negative image of the Jew as the Other is deeply embedded in Polish culture and has played a central role in the construction of the Polish national narrative; this image of the Jew as a menace to the Polish nation has resurfaced in the post-communist period. Argues that, despite this, a new literature is emerging in Poland which is aiming not only to remember nostalgically the vanished Jews of Poland, but also to transform the image of the Polish Jew and to make him/her part of the Polish nation. Some authors even try to transvaluate the very conception of otherness, to embrace the stranger in the midst of the Polish nation and within Polish individuals. Examines seven texts written by Polish writers in 1980-2000, both in Poland and abroad, belonging to the "mythic genre" and attempting to carry out this task. Three of the examined works are written by Jewish writers: Roman Gren's "Landscape with a Child", Ewa Kuryluk's "Goldi", and Bożena Keff's "A Poem about the Mother and the Fatherland", and four are by non-Jewish writers: Paweł Huelle's "Weiser Dawidek", Maciej Karpiński's "The Purim Miracle", Marian Pankowski's "There Was a Jewess, There Is No Jewess", and Mariusz Sienewicz's "We Do Not Serve Jewesses Here".
Note:
A revised and expanded version appeared in "The Holocaust as Active Memory; the Past in the Present" (2020) 45-67.
URL:
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